Surviving Aplastic Anemia catapulted me into a life of constantly striving for adventure. After being told I was in remission, I started off with a big one -- hiking across the country with my mom in 2006. That epic journey took us nine months to complete and was titled, "Our Hike" for Bone Marrow Disease. This blog is record of those adventures that shaped my life... and beyond.

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Tuesday, November 30, 2010

I've got a little cabin on a hillside with mountains all around in the distance. In the morning I wake up before sunrise and start a pot of coffee. I pet my dog and cats, feed them, then sit on the porch and watch the mountain silhouettes and the sky turn pinkish-orange behind them as I listen to the coffee dripping. I have my coffee with my dog laying next to me and my cat on my lap as I watch the sun peek over the top of the mountains and light up the gravel road that winds up to my driveway, the pine trees in the yard and the field and hillside in the distance. When I feel satisfied with my coffee intake, I slip into some hiking boots, put on a small backpack and step out the back door with my dog and start hiking into a patch of trees behind the house and up into the hill. I keep walking along some sort of game trail until I reach a creek. I stop for a snack and give my pup a treat to tide us both over until lunchtime. I lay back and stare at the blue sky through the tops of the trees. The sun peeks through in patches on my face and feels warm and comforting. There's huge, puffy white clouds that float by slowly setting me in shade for a few seconds at a time. I start to feel like I'm dozing off, so I get up, put my pack back on and continue down the light trail I was following. I start a steep climb and come to a place where the woods open up into a high meadow. There are different colored flowers surrounding my feet as I step through and continue up the steep hill. I can see a higher pass up ahead and decide that will be my destination for the day, but first I need to climb back down this hillside, then through some more thick pine and patches of flittering aspen forest, then up a steep, rocky hillside to the saddle I've got my eyes set on. My pup and I head on over the hill and down the other side, which is also covered in wildflowers. Back into the forest, we find a nice rushing creek with big, flat rocks lining the shoreline. I find one large enough for me and my dog to lay on, and it's covered with sunshine. Perfect! I take my pack off and pull out a sandwich and an apple. I sit listening to the water trickling over the rocks next to me as I have my lunch and my puppers munches away on his kibble. I lay back and soak in the sunshine. The sky is clear blue now, so I've got no cloudy shade interruption. I doze off for about 15 minutes just listening to the chirping birds, a squirrel jumping around in a tree above me and the creek water gliding by along side of me.

And I have the ability to let this dream stand still within this moment... what a beautiful advantage to a dream.